No postponement needed

LOS ANGELES — Growing up in the northern Indiana suburbs of Chicago, a teenage Gregg Popovich and his basketball-loving pals rarely missed a Chicago Bulls game on television.

They would sit around the set, watch the likes of Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lier and, according to the Spurs’ coach, gorge themselves on fried mushrooms and cold beverages.

The NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks?

To Popovich and friends, they were just that other team that played at Chicago Stadium.

On Sunday, however, Popovich tuned in to the telecast of Game 4 of the Phoenix Coyotes-Los Angeles Kings series in the Stanley Cup playoffs that began at Staples Center at noon, local time.

“Absolutely, I watched it today,” Popovich said. “I didn’t know what the heck was going on, but I watched it.”

Popovich had good reason to follow the game that could have sent the Kings to the Stanley Cup finals: Had it gone to two overtimes, his team’s Game 4 against the Clippers probably would have been postponed to today.

As it turned out, the Coyotes scored a 2-0 victory in regulation that kept their hopes alive in the NHL’s Western Conference finals. The result was a Spurs-Clippers game that began at its scheduled time of 9:30 p.m. CDT.

Spurs officials had been warned Saturday that 4:30 p.m. PDT (6:30 p.m. CDT) was the “drop dead” time to start converting the arena from hockey to basketball for a Sunday game.

It was a prospect so unsavory Popovich didn’t even bother to tell his players it existed.

To a man, the Spurs were just as happy as Popovich that the game went off as planned.

“I’m glad it didn’t (get postponed),” guard Danny Green said. “I know I was ready to play a game (Sunday). I’m pretty sure Pop wouldn’t have been too happy about that.”

The Clippers, battling injuries to key players Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, might have benefited from a postponement, but coach Vinny Del Negro said he hadn’t spent the day hoping for a long hockey game.

Doing what’s required: Popovich didn’t wait long into Game 4 to continue using the tactic that Saturday infuriated Clippers fans but helped the Spurs win Game 3. Twice in the final 1:13 of the first quarter he ordered Matt Bonner to intentionally foul L.A.’s DeAndre Jordan before the Clippers could run a play.

Jordan made two of the foul shots he was awarded.

Popovich on five occasions ordered his players to take intentional fouls on Jordan and Reggie Evans during Game 3. The result then was 2-for-10 foul shooting.

The Spurs coach acknowledged he doesn’t like using the tactic, but said playing the odds in tactical situations overruled any notion of messing with the beauty of the game.

“It’s because (Evans) is not a good free-throw shooter,” he said. “It’s not pretty. Basically, it’s ugly, but it’s part of the game. My job is to try to win. We’ve done that before.

“We did it to Kenyon (Martin) in the first game and he drilled them and laughed at us. You got to love him for that.”